Education during a global pandemic and beyond : a study on teachers’ challenges, wellbeing, and innovative work behaviour in Maltese independent schools

Abstract

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 startled the entire world. When it was officially declared a global health emergency, it posed many challenges to several industries, particularly the education system. Teachers were required to be open, flexible, and able to adapt to change and innovativeness whilst being forced to switch to an online form of instruction overnight. In this respect, this study seeks to document teachers' challenges during the global pandemic. Its primary purpose is to investigate how COVID-19 affected the education sector and how teachers were impacted. Furthermore, the researcher aims to gain further information about primary school teachers' experiences with emergency remote teaching, innovative work behaviour, their wellbeing and the school support received during these extraordinary circumstances. This exploratory mixed-methods study also seeks to address the challenges teachers experienced during COVID-19 and what was done by heads of schools to support their teaching teams. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather qualitative data. Four heads of schools were recruited so that the researcher could retrieve information about how schools were coping. Additionally, the researcher wanted to gain more insight into how school leaders were assisting their teaching team during this time. Once all the data was collected, it was analysed and four themes were identified through thematic analysis; Mental Health and Wellbeing, Innovation, Change and Support. Quantitative data was generated through a survey which was circulated to Year 4, 5, and 6 primary teachers. There was a total of 103 participants. The survey consisted of a variety of different questions that related to the challenges teachers had to face at the height of COVID-19. The feedback received from this survey was then analysed for further research. The findings were insightful since they depicted the daily obstacles that elementary teachers have faced since the start of COVID-19. As observed at a later stage in this dissertation, the educational disruption caused by COVID-19 created a lot of uncertainties and stress. Teachers were "change agents", as Fulan (1982, 1991) argues. The past few years were not easy for teachers as they had to face a considerable amount of changes, particularly the shift to online teaching, which had been rolled out overnight without any training. Teachers were not prepared for it, and although the majority of participants responded that the support they got from their schools was enough, a substantial amount of teachers struggled and needed more training, guidance, and assistance. On a more positive note, online learning is now widely acknowledged as a key element that allows teaching to be more innovative, boosting creativity. For effective teaching and learning, this study demonstrated the need for innovative work and continuous professional development. Furthermore, teachers have formed a sense of community as a response to the transition to online teaching, as they collaborated more with each other. Another critical aspect that was highlighted in this study was the importance of mental health and wellbeing and how more awareness and help should be given to those who need it.